For those of you who know Judith and Nigel (and me), a big hello to all! We are working hard and be good on Monday nights, we miss you!
Being in a new place and surrounded again by city noises, I am up at 4:30 – curse the evil of light sleeping, as this is even early for me. I make my way down just before 6am to where the head Sister is preparing breakfast and not happy that I have arrived before everything is prepared. Despite being in a big city the roosters crow and the animals soon come to life. We have a simple breakfast, I have introduced the Killer Bee Honey, which is a hit and wait for Judith and the other members of the group to arrive. They arrive earlier than expected, which is great, we give them a chance to freshen up as we head to the school early.
The walk through the village is rather spectacular, with children in uniforms heading to school, while those to young help their mom’s prepare hot chapattis, cassova chips and chai. The colors and pulse of the village are bright under a cloudy sky and a welcome sight. When we get to the school we get organized and begin the undertaking of refurbishing the dorm- 3 floors which need painting, cleaning and organizing. The 4 of us get to work with the painting while we wait for the remainder of the group to arrive. The dorms are in decent shape, much better than what I saw in Babati, although Nigel has mentioned that all of the difficult manual labor had been completed before we arrived, like filling and rebuilding the walls. We focus on the 2nd floor and as a team we quickly tackle what needs to get done. It is amazing what a little paint, cleaning and bright colours will do for a room. The group today is 12, made up of a group from the St. Columbas back in London. As we work together, it has given me a chance to get to know everyone here, a terrific group of people who not only have come together to help but all as very good and long time friends. Funny enough Petra Slater is one of them, who we know from playing tennis last year in Hyde Park.
We get a lot accomplished before lunch and are feeling good about the progress. The water and electricity are not working yet at the school but we work around that. Lunch is made on the premise for all of us and the staff. The kitchen is out back and like a traditional Tanzania kitchen, large pots over open fire. The rice pot is big enough for me to climb in to – literally. If find the head of the kitchen out there stirring enough rice for 30 singing and laughing away. She is amused that I have offered to help and teaches me how to stir rice the proper way. Lunch is delicious - rice, peas in coconut sauce, beef and mchichi.
After lunch, we head back to work to finish at least painting the 2nd floor. At 4pm, we stop to join the students for our first Swahili lesson. The kids are great and are very patient in showing us the alphabet and simple words. They explain their thoughts by writing in the sand and having us repeat in sign. We each get a sign name, mine is the movement of smoothing your hair, as my hair is so crazy! Hilarious. After our lesson, they walk us back before dinner.
The group has dinner at the convent, where we have many laughs. We are expecting 4 more tomorrow. The group is really terrific and it is amazing how they have all come together from their church to do this. As we are all very tired, it is up to bed by 9pm.
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